Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1887-01-27

GASHW1LER Ike Cne dlverglnS
rays of another sun-the Capitol-a thing
70 be feared by the naked eye. Later
yet it grew hotter, and then mist arose
from the Potomac and blotted out the
blazing arch above, and presently piled
up along the horizon delusive thunder clouds,
that spent their strength and substance else
where, and left it hotter than before. To-
ward evening the sun came out invigorated,
having cleared the heavenly brow of perspira-
ton, but leaving its fever unabated.
The city was deserted. The few who re-
mained apparently buried themselves from
the garish light of day in some dim, cloistered
recess of shop, hotel or restaurant, and the
perspiring stranger, dazed by the outer glare,
who broke in upon their quiet sequestered re-
pose, confronted colarless and coatless spec
ters of the past, with fans in their hands, who,
, after dreamily going through some perfunct-
ory business, Immediately retired to sleep after
the stranger had gone. Congressman and
senators had long since returned to their sew
eral constituencies, with the various informa-
ton that the country was going to ruin, or
that the outlook never was more hopeful and
cheering, as the tastes of their constituency
indicated. A few cabinet officers still fingered,
having 10y this time become convinced that
they could do nothing their own way, or indeed
many way but the old way, and getting gloom
lily resigned to their situation. A body of
learned, cultivated men, representing the
highest legal tribunal in the land still
fingered in vague idea of earning the scant
salary bestowed upon them by the economical
founders of the government, and listened
patiently to the arguments of counsel, whose
fees for advocacy of claims before them
would have paid the life income of half the
bench. There was Mr.. Attorney General
and his assistants still protecting the govern
ment's millions from rapacious hands, and
drawing the yearly public pittance that their
wealthier private antagonists would havo
scarce given as retainer to their junior
counsel. The little standing army Of de-
partmental employes-the helpless victims Of
the most senseless and idiotic form of disci-
pline the world has known-a discipline so
made up Of caprice, expediency, cowa-dice
and tyranny that its reform meant revolu-
ton, not to be tolerated by legislators and
lawgivers, or a despotism in which half
dozen accidentally chosen men interpreted
their prejudices of preference as being that
reform. Administration after administTa-
ton and party after party had persisted in
their desperate attempts to fit the youthful
colonial garments, made by our fathers after
by-gone fashion, over the expanded limits
and generous outline of a matured nation.
There were patches here and there; there
were grievous rents and holes here and there;
therewer ludicrous and painful exposures of
growing limbs everywhere; and the party in
power and the party out of power could do
nothing but mend and patch, and revamp
and cleanse and scour, and occasionally, in
the wildness of despair, suggest even the cut.
ting off the rebellious limbs that persisted in
growing beyond the swaddling clothes of its
infancy.
ltwas capital # contradictions and in.
consistencies At one end of the avenue sat
the responsible high keeper of the military
honor valor am sarlike prestige Of great
= na.ieeo ..iieeeeoless IN te power to pay his own
orotg to na-t dues until some selfish
iualrei pet"t> -4arty and party was settled.
hard by sat another secretary, whose estab-
Ashed functions seemed to be the misrepre-
sentation of the nation abroad by the least
characteristic of its classes, the politicians
and only then when they had been defeated
as politicians, and when their constituents had
declared them no longer worthy to be even
their representatives. The national absurdity
was only equaled by another, wherein an ex-
politician was for four years expected to up
hold the honor of flag of great nation
over an ocean he had never tempted, with a
dlclplne the rudiments of which he could
scarcely acquire before he was removed, or
hls term of office expired. receiving his orders
from superior officer as ignorant Of his
special duties as himself, and subjected to the
revision of a congress cogrizant of him only